Life with Cooper, Tooey, and Carlin, the Irish Water Spaniels

Occasionally I add blog posts about a disease called symmetrical lupoid onychodystrophy (SLO). It’s an auto-immune condition in which the immune system attacks the affected dog’s nails. It’s not an infection caused by bacteria, virus, or fungus.

SLO causes a dog to lose, break, and split toenails on more than one foot. Studies are now showing that it has a significant genetic component, but it probably also has an environmental component. The environment can include everything from events that occur in the womb before birth, to anything that happens to or around the dog after birth.

The reason I write about it is that my dog Cooper has it.

If you think your dog has SLO…

Go see a veterinary dermatologist. Many regular vets have not seen very much SLO, so they may not recognize it. On the other hand, many veterinary dermatologists have seen SLO because skin, coat, and nails are what they specialize in.

My posts on SLO

Here are a list of the blog posts I’ve written on the topic, from earliest to latest:

We did not have to have our dog’s nails removed, but he has had nausea as a reaction to some of the medications. If you haven’t done this already, go see a veterinary dermatologist. They are the specialists who can treat SLO the best. They will be able to help you choose the best medicines that reduce the nausea. We also consulted a veterinarian who uses Chinese medicine. She helped us a lot with getting our dog’s digestive system in shape so that the medicines could work without making him sick.

Hi There, just trawling the Internet looking for answers regarding my dogs toenail problems. It hasn’t been diagnosed as SLO yet, but it looks exactly the same and sounds the same as the signs and symptoms that I’ve read about. How did the dermatologist diagnose SLO? My dogs already had an actual toe (digit) removed, and got sent away for testing …came back as a couple of ingrown hairs and a cyst. But has since had more problems with his nails, same thing again. I wondered if maybe when they looked at his digit, maybe they haven’t checked for SLO, maybe they found the hairs and cyst and assumed that was the cause & for that reason have overlooked the real problem? or it is diagnosed differently? It’s been going on for over six months now and my dog is in pain. Please help 🙂

My veterinary dermatologist diagnosed Cooper’s SLO by looking at his nails. The condition of his nails, and the fact that the breakage and loss was happening on multiple feet, were among the factors she looked at. She’s seen SLO before, and didn’t need to do a biopsy to diagnose it.

If your veterinary dermatologist doesn’t have experience with SLO, find another one who has. It may be that your dog has something else, but you’ll need someone who recognizes it to rule it out if that’s the case.

You can also start right away giving your dog Omega fatty acids and vitamin E. In the Yahoo group Files section, there is a “getting started” document that can help you figure out how much to give your dog — the amount is based on the dog’s weight. The Files section also has a lot of other information, and the email messages sent by group members are helpful and comforting.

Until you can get pain medication for your dog, soaking your dog’s feet in Epsom salts and warm water will help soothe the pain, keep the nails clean, and help prevent infection.

Also, I allow my dog to lick his feet and chew his own broken or loose nails. I don’t try to remove them myself because it hurts my dog too much. I used to have the vet remove them, but that didn’t seem to help any and became expensive. You will learn from experience what works best for your dog.

If you read my other posts, you can see all the things I’ve tried, from Chinese medicine, to supplements, to prescription medications. They all work to some extent, but each dog is different.

Our greyhound suffers with SLO and has done for a few years now. She started losing claws and the vet was puzzled until they removed a claw for a biopsy. I’ve done a little write-up including photos http://www.rescue-greyhounds.sp-2.co.uk Kind regards, Andy – Salisbury, England

Wrapping up the feet every time he goes out has been tough with the nails sticking out.being on prednisone he (Jethro)has to go pee every time I look at him and pill pockets well this is a life time for all of us.He’s my buddy Beagle.what’s this all about he doesn’t get it either.

Instead of trying to soak my Fonzy’s feet, I spray affected toes with Bactine. The lidocaine helps a bit with pain and it helps keep them clean without having to touch them. Also handy to spray on my own nicks & scrapes

Thank you so much for all of this information. Our almost 3yr old Bearded Collie who is also named Cooper, is losing his nails and our groomer found this malady while grooming. The poor little guy he has 7 nails missing and dew claws too. We noticed a couple of time he was running and yelped and then limped and sat down. Thought he stepped on a stick – now it makes sense what is going on. We see the Vet tomorrow and only live 5 hrs max from Madison Wisconsin which is tops. Our Vet is tops too and our Breeder was outstanding helping us with what to do etc. I hope we can

Thank you for the wealth of information. I have a Scottish Terrier who is two years old, for over a year she has been biting and chewing her feet. She chews and bites constantly. After several trips to her vet and many, many dietary changes for food allergies, she was diagnosed today with SLO. I noticed for the past few weeks she would walk with a limp on occasion, really guarding her paws, but the paws would change to maybe the front one for a few days, then a rear one for a few days. I would constantly try to examine her feet to see what was going on but she wouldn’t let me look. During bathing I noticed she would get very nervous when I would get near her feet as well. Yesterday she was limping and didn’t want to walk or play, upon examination of her foot I found a nail that appeared smashed and indented, it was up by the cuticle and bleeding quite a bit. So I called the vet and made an appointment, however they couldn’t get her in for several days. A couple hours later, she was really licking and chewing on that same foot, so I did a more thorough exam thinking I could try to wrap it up and maybe provide some stability to the broken nail. That’s when I noticed the nail next to that nail was deformed looking, when I pulled her fur back to get a better look she had another nail growing out of the same cuticle, it was very creepy looking. I actually have no idea what I thought at that moment, except I was horrified! I was able to get her into another vet today, I am very glad I did, this vet was able to diagnose SLO upon a visual examination. My little girl had to have several toenails removed today, she was so brave, just let the vet remove them without anesthesia. She immediately showed improvement, being able to walk that is. However my vet highly suggest I find a dermatologist as soon as possible. Reading Coopers plight has really given me a emotional roller coaster, I am terribly sorry he has such a hard time with it, but very thankful to have happened upon your blog because I was completely ignorant of this disease. I was wondering, until I get my little Pepper into a dermatologist what can I do to make her feel better and help prevent this from getting worse? She is currently on a no grain diet, but it is beef flavor, and they say it’s real beef, reading your blog about Coopers food made me curious if I have Pepper on the wrong thing. I give her oatmeal baths for the “Allergies” aka:constant foot licking and chewing that the other vet said was a food allergy. However the vet today didn’t mention what to soak her in, if she did I was so emotionally upset that I can’t remember. Thank you for your time.

I am sorry this is happening to your dog. You’re doing the right thing getting her to a veterinary dermatologist.

The thing that soothed Cooper’s feet was soaking in warm Epsom salts water for about five minutes, followed by a quick rinse. I put his feet one at a time in bowls of warm Epsom salts water, but I know some folks who do all 4 feet at once in a bathtub. The soaks soothe the pain, help prevent infection, and dry out the quicks.

I never wrapped Cooper’s feet because that seemed to make him more uncomfortable. I also let him lick and chew his nails as much as he wanted. He eventually learned to take off his own nails. Since I was soaking his feet every day that he had a broken nail, I wasn’t worried about licking causing infection. And plus I think the licking soothed pain. If your dog is in a lot of pain, ask the vet about pain medication.

If you join the SLOdogs yahoo group, you’ll see that most dogs’ situations improve with treatment, and some even go into remission. I had to keep Cooper on medication his whole life, but it really helped him have a full and active life.

Dearest Patrice, I am so very sorry for the really long response time from your reply to me regarding my littledog and her SLO. I didn’t see your reply until now. We took pepperto the Dermatologist Specialist up in Columbus, I am so glad that we did. She’s really expensive to see though, so after a while our finances became impacted by this and I had to stop going on a monthly basis, and started to do treatments at home. What I mean is I’d call the vet and beg her for refills on medication haha. Thankfully the vets not completely heartless and was understanding. So to make a long story short, I have had pepper on a high amino acid diet that was prescription only, to be honest there has been little change with the chewing and biting. What I have noticed though is she doesn’t chew her paws as often as she did, and now that it’s summer I have seen a huge increase in chewing, so I’m convinced we are also dealing with seasonal allergies. The vet treated her with doxycycline 3 times a day, a snip tip fish oil capsule once a day and pentoxifyline 2 times a day. We were on this regimen for a long while without any change. So the vet changed her to cephalosporin for about three months. We didn’t have anymore broken nails after about 3 months. Because of the side effects I took her off of the medicine when she showed improvement. Now that summer is back, she’s chewing again, but I haven’t seen any broken nails yet. I’m praying we are in remission, I guess only time will tell though.

Just when you think your furry baby is doing better with SLO it raises its head and strikes again! Our baby is 3 years old Feb 1st and his name is Cooper. We discovered this malady last early summer and it was just a few weeks after immunizations which makes us think that contributed to the onset. He has been a trooper though and takes his many medications and does well. He has been off of his antibiotics now for about 2 months – but he started the chewing and licking and limping a few days ago and is back on antibiotics. It just hurts to see our little guy not feeling good and in pain.

I’m sorry you’re going through this. We tried getting my Cooper off the antibiotics, but it didn’t work. He stayed on the doxycycline, niacinimide, salmon oil, and vitamin E combination until he died. As long as he was on that, his nails didn’t break. When we tried to get him off them, the nails started breaking again.

Hi, Patrice. Sorry for your loss. I am playing catch up on all the blogs. I have a Greyhound that has just been diagnosed with slo. Luckily our vet diagnosed it quickly. He still has lost nails, bled all over the place, probably will lose more nails,but we have medicine to give to him. Vet prescribed Doxycycline and Niacinamide for treatment. Also, said omega 3 and 6 fatty acids 1500 EPA per day as well as Vitamin E 200-400 IU twice a day would help as well. I am switching dog kibble out with a cold river salmon formula that has the Omega 3’s and vitamin E. I also ordered Salmon oil online from Amazon. Important thing to note. The fish oil humans take is not the same for our animals. Don’t give them the big Ole fish oil pills folks.

When I buy fish oil capsules, I look for the proportion of Omega 3 EPA to Omega 3 DHA, which I want to be 3:2. I also look to make sure that there are no added ingredients. I want just oils from the fatty fish: salmon, sardine, pilchard, mackerel, or herring. No sugars, no sweeteners, no vegetable or mineral oils. This is the advice I was given by my veterinary dermatologist, and it works for my dogs.

Hi Berdie mom- Have you taken your dog to a Dermatologist Specialist Vet? What I learned, and I promise I’m still learning, my vet explained that immune deficiency syndromes are triggered through allergens, control the allergy and you may potentially control the disease. What food did your vet put your dog on? That for us, besides the pain is the worst part. I want to be able to share with my little dog and can’t do that. Instead I started giving her mackerel, it’s inexpensive and good for her. I did run this by my vet before doing it. I hate having her on such a plane diet, plus it’s really expensive. However we haven’t had any more broken nails, knock on wood.

Thank you for posting all your experience with SLO and Cooper. My boy has been receiving the same treatment for three months now and has almost lost all of his nails. Every three to four weeks he sloughs more off, then they seem to harden until the next round. It’s been stressful, exhausting, and still leaves me speechless most days. I’m hoping in a few months or a year from now it will be manageable. I wish I knew if he was going to grow them back in only to loose them again or if it’ll be better after they grow in straight finally.

Have you joined the SLOdogs yahoo group yet? Every dog has a different experience with SLO, and you can read about them on that group. Cooper’s situation was bad at the beginning. He cracked and lost many nails over and over. As time went on, though, it got better. As long as I kept him on the treatment, he did ok most of the time.

I’m sorry this is happening to your dog. It’s painful for you and the dog. I did a lot of crying.